Nowadays or even before, conversation plays an important role in our society, it is a way on how we connect to each other, it is a way on how we build a strong connection with people who surrounds us. The article The Flight From Conversation written by Sherry Turkle is about how people connect with each other by being technologically dependent. Also, on how we live and adapt in these so called technological universe. The author talked about being comfortable on using technology than communicating face-to-face. It states a lot about our expectations on technology and how it changed our perception on talking with one another personally. It opens a topic that shows the evolution of the way on how we communicate and the reasons behind it. Living in a technological universe have a great impact in ourselves and relationships with other people; we become more dependent on technology than being dependent to someone that we can interact with; and we are letting go of the chances to experience what a real conversation is.
Over the past few years, technology has paved its way into these days; technology has been a big part in our world and in our lives. These changes has a great effect on ourselves, Turkle said in her article how powerful the devices we carry around as it can change not only what we do but also who we are as a person. We became dependent on what we are seeing in social media, it changes our perception in things through influencing other people. We are doing the things that we saw on our socials and doing the things we are asked to. These may have a positive side as we became more careful of what we will be posting on our socials. Despite of this positive effect, we are distancing ourselves in the reality. We become more focused on the things we see but not the things we will be able to see behind those screens. In addition, technology also affects our relationship to others as we lessen our physical interaction, we already forgot the skills on communication and we already forgot why we need to communicate. Turkle also said that “We’ve become accustomed to a new way of being alone together”. She also said that “we are together but each of us is in our own bubble”, we already created our own world through technology; we have been closing the door of our world which will connect us with each other. For me, our relationship with each other is like a mirror, we just act on how others treat us but we cannot see what they really mean, there is always a boundary between people where we are not letting them to know what we really feel and what are the things we have in mind. We just focused on the things we see but not the story behind it.
Moreover, Turkle also state that “WE expect more from technology and less from one another and seem increasingly drawn to technologies that provide the illusion of companionship without the demands of relationship” which we are being dependent on technology; we always want to be in or cope with the trend. It looks like technology has been dictating what we should do. We always look into what technology can do, what it can provide and we are looking into things that fills our satisfaction. In my opinion, we give importance to what the social media talks about than what really is happening in reality. We are being influenced by social media through the point that we are using this platform to voice out our opinion in some issues that is happening in our surroundings. Turkle said from her article about a high school sophomore who is more likely to ask for a dating advice from an artificial intelligence program than his dad, it is one example of being dependent on technology. The importance of face-to-face conversation fades away that we already doesn’t care of what might others feel because we already have these A.I. programs that can be our friends. In my opinion, we are losing interests in everything to the point that we lose our interest as being each other’s friend. We already forgot that reality exists; that true people exists because of improving our world though technology.
Moreover, Capistrano (2016) states that technology is a wonderful thing and we are being too dependent on it to the point that in everything we do, technology has been a part of it. In addition, Johansson (2018) mentioned on her article that being dependent on technology can also cause harm to us because too much use of electronic devices can be the reason of why people suffer from different mental health issues because we are taking ourselves away from reality which we are avoiding things likely to happen and we are creating those ideal worlds that we want to happen. Through suffering from mental health issues, it can also lead to addiction as we are seeking for attention that we can gain in social media, gaming, porn and any other technology related stuffs. We are limiting our minds, and our ideas of what reality is. For me, it is becoming a human trap on how technology fabricates the minds and lives of people involved. According to a video documentary I have watched which is entitled The Social Dilemma, “If you are not paying for the product, then you are the product” Tristan Harris said who was a former worker at Google. There are a lot of tactics that is used by social media platform which makes us more addicted and curious about what we see online. They use our interests to catch our attention through technology.
2020-10-13-1602594971